Guest Speakers
Dr. Rachel Edie is an environmental scientist in the Division of Air Quality at the Utah Department of Environmental Quality. She holds a B.A. degree in Chemistry from University of Colorado Boulder and a Ph.D. degree in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of Wyoming. While in graduate school, she co-founded the Graduate Student Network, WySci (a science communication initiative), and mentored undergraduate women in the Promoting Geoscience Education and Success program. In addition to working for the state, she is also an adjunct professor at the University of Utah.
Janica Gordon is a PhD student in Applied Physics at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University. Janica is from New Orleans, Louisiana. She is a first-generation college graduate and she received her BS in Mathematics from Southern University at New Orleans. Janica received her MS in Mathematics and Physics with a concentration in Physics from the Southern University and Agriculture & Mechanical College.
Arsineh Hecobian is an Air Specialist in Chevron's Technology Company. As an Air Specialist she manages projects that integrate various aspects of measurement and control of ambient emissions of different compounds in the air. At Chevron, Arsineh is the co-director of the elevate program, which is a program that allows minorities to share their headwinds with the majority and is based on the three pillars of: Privilege, Empathy gap, and Intersectionality. Before Chevron, she conducted research at Colorado State University where she led projects that quantified the concentrations and emission rates of methane, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and other compounds emitted from various anthropogenic activities.
Barron Henderson is a Physical Scientist at the US EPA studying air quality. He uses theory and computer simulation to explore scientific and societal issues related to air pollution. Barron’s research advances process-level understanding within air quality models and uses those models to quantify integrated impacts of air pollution at local, regional and global scales. Before joining the US EPA, Barron was an Assistant Professor at the University of Florida, where he taught "Elements of Air Pollution", "Global Air Pollution" and "Energy and the Environment." Barron received his PhD in Atmospheric Sciences and his MS degree in Atmospheric Chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Libby Koolik is a PhD Student in Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. She studies the relationship between historic climate change policies and current air quality disparities among racial and ethnic groups in California. She is designing data-driven computational pipelines for understanding air quality disparities. Libby received her BS degree in Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences and her Master’s of Engineering degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Between completing her master's degree and starting her PhD, she worked as an air quality and climate consultant for Ramboll in San Francisco, California.
Aranzazu Lascurain is the Assistant University Director of the Southeast Climate Adaptation Science Center (SE CASC) where she directs the Global Change Fellows Program, and carries out partnerships with other climate organizations and Tribal Nations and communities. She has a broad background in environmental conservation and resource planning. She has worked for city, county and state agencies in the west on water quality management and endangered species protection. She has worked in environmental education in the South Pacific Islands and international climate change policy. She has a B.A. from University of California, Berkeley and a M.S. from University of Oregon. Aranzazu is a first-generation immigrant from Mexico, is fluent in Spanish, and takes great pride in using her native language when working in Puerto Rico.
Bonnie Laws is Supervisor of Environmental Affairs for Five Rivers Cattle Feeding, LLC. Bonnie received her BS degree in Applied Science and Crop Science from the Colorado State University and her master’s degree in Environmental Science and Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines.
Anastasia (Stacy) Montgomery is a PhD student at Northwestern University in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. She received her BS in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she first began to research air quality and its connection to human activities. For her undergraduate thesis, she studied how economic development and air pollution are related over the 100 most populous cities. Stacy currently works in the Climate Change Research Group (CCRG), advised by Professor Dan Horton. Her research is focused on Chicago, using observational datasets and computer models to identify air pollution hotspots. With these environmental models, Stacy also quantifies the health, economic, and air quality benefits of implementing climate policy.
Alyssa Peer is a master's student in Applied Statistics at Loyola University Chicago. She has a B.S. in Management Information Systems from Florida State University. She is currently working with Dr. Mena Whalen, from Loyola's Math and Statistics Department, on retrieving and visualizing air quality data from a cloud database. Alyssa is interested in modeling and understanding the relationship between the environment and its impact on society.
Federico Sinche is a lecturer teaching foundational environmental science courses and labs at the Loyola University Chicago in the School of Environmental Sustainability. Federico is originally from Ecuador in South America. He started graduate studies as a Fulbright Scholar (Class of 2010) in the United States. He is an eco-toxicologist by training who has spent his professional life studying how pollutants impact aquatic systems. He has collaborated with professionals and researchers from diverse science fields and cultural backgrounds. He has been involved in higher education at the teaching and research levels for over 10 years. He actively looks for ways to contribute to diversity programs in higher education because he recognizes the value of the assistance he received from faculty mentors, scholarships, and minority student support while he was a student in Ecuador and the United States. He firmly believes that representation for all students and professionals is essential on college campuses and research facilities across the globe.
Travis Toth is a physical scientist at the NASA Langley Research Center. He holds a B.S. degree in Meteorology from Millersville University, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Atmospheric Sciences from the University of North Dakota. During his Ph.D. studies, he participated in the NASA Pathways Intern Employment Program at the Langley Research Center, and he was a recipient of the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship. His general research interest is remote sensing of atmospheric aerosols and clouds through synergy of active and passive satellite datasets. His latest research projects focus on air quality and involve the study of particulate matter pollution using lidar measurements.
Jake Zaragoza is a Consultant III (Environmental Engineer) at Ramboll in Fort Collins, Colorado. He helps clients better understand their air quality problems and needs. Jake graduated with a master's degree from the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. He is a meticulous and quick learning individual with 5+ years of hands-on air quality and meteorology instrumentation experience, with recent responsibilities also including data validation and reporting for air quality monitoring sites. He also has experience analyzing ambient monitoring data using various programming languages. He is also bilingual (Spanish).